Richard Batchelder, Jr

Partner, Ropes & Gray LLP

Richard has advised Ropes & Gray clients for nearly 30 years in a wide range of complex business litigation matters before courts throughout the country. In recent years, Richard has handled a number of high profile contractual and indemnification disputes for life sciences and health care clients of the firm. He has advised many of the firm’s private equity clients and their portfolio companies in numerous capacities, from analyzing litigation risk in proposed transactions to representing them in court post-acquisition. In addition, he defended large retailers in class action lawsuits brought by financial institutions in the wake of two of the largest data breaches in U.S. history. Richard served as the firm’s hiring partner from 2011 to 2016, and was a member of the firm’s diversity committee. Richard is active in pro bono matters at the firm, including submitting amicus briefs to the Supreme Court in Barber v. Bryant, on behalf of GLAD and NCLR, Gloucester County Sch. Bd. v. G.G. on behalf of The Equality Foundation, Fisher v. University of Texas on behalf of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, and assisting in the successful appeal before the 11th Circuit in an important free speech case involving a physician’s right to discuss gun safety with their patients (Wollschlaeger v. Governor of Florida). Richard joined Ropes & Gray in 1991 following a federal court clerkship in Boston, and became a partner in 1999.